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Boffins project ‘Bin the Boffin’ onto Star HQ – we’re still calling you boffins

Eggheads blew thousands of pounds on dramatic light displays urging us to stop calling them “boffins”.

Cheeky brainboxes at the Institute Of Physics projected their “Bin the Boffin” message on the side of our London HQ.

The loopy light show cost the group around £6,000. Half of that was spent on the projection at the Daily Star’s Canary Wharf base.

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The institute’s Rachel Youngman said: “Running around at night with projectors is not something the IOP does very often or does lightly.

“But we want to see the word boffin binned once and for all.



The cheeky light show cost £3,000
The cheeky light show cost £3,000

“Reporting which suggests physicists and scientists are all oddballs, eccentrics or one-in-a-million geniuses is just another barrier to us recruiting the next generation of young physicists.”

Asked about the cost of ­the operation, a spokesperson said: “It cost £3,000 for the projection at the Daily Star which we think is great value for getting one of Britain’s best-loved newspapers to pay attention to getting people into science.”

The brainiacs launched their campaign three months ago. And the Institute Of Physics spokesperson added: “In 2019 alone physics directly generated £229billion gross value added.

“But a shortage of skills has already put a brake on the innovation activities of two thirds of physics-based businesses.”



'We want to see the word boffin binned once and for all...'
‘We want to see the word boffin binned once and for all…’

It comes after an artificial intelligence bof… expert said claims technology will “escape are control” are “ridiculous”.

Yann LeCun, one of three ‘AI godfathers’ who won the 2018 Turing Award, said: “This scenario is ridiculous.

“Getting the system to run for about 20 minutes without crashing is really hard.

“Imagining that the system somehow is going to replicate itself all across the world is just preposterous.”

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